Lessenberry: Will to tackle education lacking in Michigan

LANSING — Gretchen Whitmer ran for governor six years ago, vowing to do more for education than anyone had in eons. She won, but Republicans kept control of the Legislature, which put limits on what she could do.

Then two years ago, she was re-elected by a landslide, and Democrats also won control of the Legislature for the first time in decades. Educators were excited about the future. The governor’s goals included free community college and universal, free pre-kindergarten education for the state’s 4-year-olds.

Last year’s education budget was seen positively by school officials, and if they didn’t get everything they wanted, they knew the Democrats were frantically busy trying to overturn and replace years of Republican policies, such as Right to Work.

This year, the schools hoped, would be better. But when the state’s proposed education budget for the year, beginning Oct. 1, was revealed last month, educators were horrified. “The school lobby is furious,” said longtime Lansing pundit Bill Ballenger.

“They regard this year’s school aid budget as the worst they’ve seen in two decades,” he said in his weekly Ballenger Report.

Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of Michigan, denounced the proposed budget.

The Michigan Association of Superintendents and Administrators tried to get legislators to oppose the budget. But encouraged by the governor, Democrats, who have only the thinnest of majorities, rammed it through on party line votes.

Days later, two rising Democratic stars in the Legislature, State Representatives Samantha Steckloff of Farmington Hills and Regina Weiss of Oak Park resigned from their roles as house finance chair and campaign chair, respectively.

Those weren’t just symbolic titles.

Democrats have only a 56-54 edge in the statehouse, and every seat is up for election. The reason they quit, according to the respected Gongwer News Service, was the way the education budget was handled.

To the stunned surprise of many, the budget allowed schools to skip paying into the state retirement fund this year. The change was made, and despite assurances, the bill was never transmitted to the state Senate for a final vote on this issue.

But there are far more reasons to be upset about this year’s education budget. For starters, at $20.6 billion, the overall budget is nearly a billion dollars less than last year’s. State officials said that’s largely because of the end of extra funding Washington was providing the state during the pandemic.

But the way in which money is being allocated has angered people more. Since 1994, the main source of school funding has been a per-pupil “foundation grant” to districts from the state.

Last year, that was set at $9,608 per pupil, and most took it for granted that this would increase. But to school superintendents’ shock, there was no increase in the foundation grant at all this year. Defenders of the budget say this was more than compensated for.

State Sen. Dayna Polehanki (D., Livonia) posted on X (formerly Twitter) that skipping the retirement fund payment gives the schools the equivalent of a 3.9 percent increase, “MORE money” than any foundation grant increase would have yielded.

But few were happy, and the conventional school districts’ anger grew when they learned that most charter schools, which are technically public schools, would be getting an increase in the foundation grant, apparently because 80 percent of them don’t participate in the state retirement fund.

Few are more knowledgeable about public education than Casandra Ulbrich, a former member and president of the Michigan State Board of Education for 16 years.

A passionate believer in public schools, Ms. Ulbrich, a Democrat and the first member of her family to go to college, ended up earning a Ph.D; she is now vice chancellor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She noted that Governor Whitmer’s budget does some positive things, including increasing funding for students with disabilities and other special education programs.

But she was taken aback that the new budget cuts almost all funding for school safety and mental health.

However, Ms. Ulbrich sees a far bigger issue. She thinks it is time to overhaul the way public education is run and funded in this state.

“For one thing, [public school] enrollment has declined for the last 10 years. Why are we still building new school buildings?”

There are many other issues that also need addressing, and she thinks the next two years may offer a golden opportunity to do that, given that Democrats are in control and the governor, who wants to leave a legacy, doesn’t have to worry about running again.

There is, in fact, general agreement that things need fixing. What seems to be lacking, so far, is the will to tackle it.

Jack Lessenberry is a former national editor for The Blade. Contact him at: omblade@aol.com